The playbook — gold · September 9, 2026
First concentrate at Skouries after a decade of trouble
Eldorado's Greek copper-gold plant finally makes product. Commercial production is targeted for Q4 2026 — and the grid isn't hooked up yet.
On September 8, 2026, Eldorado Gold’s Skouries mine in northern Greece produced its first copper-gold concentrate — the wet, metal-rich powder that ships to a smelter. That single day ended a build that started, stalled, and restarted over roughly a decade. Skouries is one of the largest copper-gold projects in Europe. Getting rock to run through the processing plant is the moment a construction site becomes a mine. Simon Hille, the company’s COO, signed off on the technical details as the Qualified Person under NI 43-101, the Canadian rule that puts a named expert’s reputation on the numbers.
Here’s why the market cared. CEO George Burns is the same executive who, months after arriving in 2017, suspended the whole Greek investment because the permits weren’t coming. The company reached a revised deal with the Greek government in 2021 and restarted building in 2022, after more than a billion dollars had gone in before a single ounce came out. Guidance calls for 140,000 ounces of gold and 67 million pounds of copper a year over the mine’s life — those are forward-looking targets, not proven output. A 4.6-million-tonne stockpile of above-reserve-grade ore is stacked and waiting to feed the ramp-up. Backing sits behind it: a €680 million financing package with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as a partner. Over the three months around this news, Eldorado’s stock climbed 51.2% while the junior gold index rose 36.7% and gold itself gained only 4.3% — meaning this was a company story, not just a metal-price tide.
Now the honest part. First concentrate is a commissioning milestone, not a drill result — there are no grades or intervals to weigh here. The plant’s actual metal recoveries and concentrate quality at full commercial scale have not yet been demonstrated. Connection to the Greek national power grid was still pending as of the release, with only temporary on-site power running commissioning; that hook-up was expected by end of August and has already slipped once. The company points to grid connection in September 2026 and a commercial production declaration in Q4 2026 — a date that itself moved back from earlier late-2025 guidance. Costs run mostly in euros but get reported in dollars, so the exchange rate matters. And nearly everything rides on this one asset delivering. Grid power and steady recoveries are the tests worth watching next.